Anne K. Churchland, Ph.D.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Anne K. Churchland received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco, advised by Dr. Stephen Lisberger. She then did a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Michael Shadlen at the University of Washington in the Physiology and Biophysics Department. Her postdoctoral work focused on mechanisms of decision making in nonhuman primates and included both experimental and theoretical work. The latter was funded by a Pathways to Independence (K99) Award from the National Eye Institute. In 2010, she became an assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In starting her own laboratory, Professor Churchland began studying decision making using rodent models to take advantage of emerging tools for circuit dissection which are readily available in rodents. Since then, her laboratory has been a major player in bringing behavioral paradigms to rodents that have been successful in elucidating neural mechanisms in primates. These include perceptual decision making and multisensory integration.

Since joining Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Professor Churchland has been the recipient of awards from the McKnight Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Klingenstein-Simons Foundation, the John Merck Fund and the Chapman Foundations. In addition to her scientific work, Professor Churchland runs science outreach activities at public schools and co-directs the Undergraduate Research Program at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She also maintains a blog about neuroscience research that is directed at a mainstream audience. It was selected as an official blog for the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in 2013.